Niagara ReporterShortly after the new year, Mayor Paul Dyster called in four employees for a meeting.
“Staff,” he said, “this really cuts me to the quick, but I’m going to have to let one of you go.”
The Black employee spoke up right away: “I’m a protected minority.”
Then the female employee chimed in: “And I’m a woman.”
Dyster’s oldest employee spoke up: “Fire me, buster, and I’ll hit you with an age discrimination suit so fast it’ll make your head spin.”
At that point, they all turn to look at the helpless young, white, male employee, Johnny Destino, who thinks a moment, then responds: “I think I might be gay…”
***
Mayor Paul Dyster is known for nothing if not tact. He called up Johnny Destino to give him the bad news that he was being fired. He started the conversation with, “John, I really don’t know how we’re going to get along without you, but starting Monday, we’re going to try.”
***
When they called the roll at the last City Council meeting, Councilman Walker absentmindedly responded, “Not Guilty!”
***
When you think about it, Charles Walker is a lot like George Washington, in that he never tells a lie. But then, he never files a campaign contribution report either.
***
The plea deal that NYS Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is offering Councilman Walker for not filing mandatory campaign finance forms for over a decade, misdemeanor crimes, consists of a plea deal which requires Walker, according to the Gazette, “to ‘accept’ a disorderly conduct (violation) charge, rectify two recent missing filings, and pay a $250 fine.”
After the terms of the plea bargain were made public, a reporter asked Attorney General Schneiderman if he had received any campaign contributions from Councilman Walker.
“Not yet,” he responded.
***
One day Mayor Dyster and Council Chair Walker were visiting a primary school in Niagara Falls, and were taken into the room of a class discussing words and their meanings. The teacher asked Dyster whether he would care to lead a discussion on the word “tragedy”, so he asked the class to give him an example.
A little boy stood up, and said, “If my friend, who lives on a farm, was playing in the field, and a tractor ran over him, and killed him, that would be a tragedy”.
“No,” said Dyster, ‘that wouldn’t be a tragedy: that would be an accident”.
A little girl raised her hand: “If my school bus had fifty boys and girls in it, and it drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy”.
“I’m afraid not,” interjected Walker; “That is what we would call a great loss.”
The room went silent. No child volunteered.
Dyster asked the children, “Can no one here give me an example of a tragedy?”
At the back of the room, a little hand went up, and a quiet voice said, “If an Amtrak train carrying you and Mr. Walker derailed, and you both died, that would be a tragedy”.
“Magnificent!” exclaimed Dyster, “That’s right! And can you tell me why that would be tragedy?”
“Well,” said the quiet voice, “It has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn’t be a great loss, and it probably wouldn’t be an accident.”
